Monthly Archives : September 2017

Fort Wayne’s finest, LEFT LANE CRUISER have unveiled a new video ahead of their European tour.

‘Claw Machine Wizard is the title track from the band’s latest album, which was released last spring through Alive Naturalsound and which sees them returned to a duo format of Freddie ‘Jo’ Evans IV on guitar and vocals and Pete Dio on drums.

Their tour licks off in Lille, France on 10 October, taking in Russia, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands before landing in London on 7 November for ten shows in the UK and Ireland. Full dates are….

Fast-rising California punks SCIATIC NERVE have just launched a new video ahead of the release of their debut album.

‘Bright Lights’ is taken from the self-titled album which is out on Friday 13 October through Gunner Records.

The Bay Area band, who’ve all been friends since junior high, all have substantial track records, serving in SWINGIN’ UTTERS, NOTHINGTON, WESTERN ADDICTION and COBRA SKULLS.

Speaking about the single, frontman Chris Matulich says, “‘Bright Lights’ is kind of an abstract song lyrically. It doesn’t have a clear focus, and I like vague lyrics that allow listeners to find/create their own meaning. It means something different to me now than what I intended when I wrote it about walking the streets of my neighbourhood in San Francisco.”

Ace London club night SOME WEIRD SIN celebrate their 5th Anniversary this weekend with an evening of top garage rock’n’roll.

Taking place at their regular haunt of Nambucca, Holloway Road on Friday 29 September, the night is headlined by relocated Kiwi urchins THE CAVEMEN, who are joined by MISCALCULATIONS, playing their first show in two years in honour of their new album Echolocation.

The bill is completed by powerpop sensations LUCY & THE RATS and primal protopunks WEIRD SEX.

They’ll be assisted before, in between and after by regular DJs Simon Drowner and Mauro Venegas.

New York garage-psych legends THE FUZZTONES hit the UK for a pair of dates two months apart.

Formed in 1980 by frontman Rudi Protrudi, their debut album Lysergic Emanations was a ubiquitous presence on turntables during the mid-80s garage revival, with the band eventually signing to RCA.

The band returns to the UK to play Nottingham’s Blast Off Festival taking place at the city’s Irish Centre and Rough Trade from 9 to 12 November. They headline the Friday night and join the likes of THE PRETTY THINGS, KALEIDOSCOPE, MUCK & THE MIRES, THE LAUNDERETTES, THE FUZILLIS, THE COURETTES, THE HIPSHAKES, HANGEE V and more across the weekend.

Weekend tickets priced £65 are available here. Day tickets are also available.

The Fuzztones then return to the UK for a show at London’s 100 Club on Thursday 25 January with special guests THE GALILEO 7. Tickets priced £17.50 are available here.

Berkshire electro-punks PINK DIAMOND REVUE have a new single out next month and they’re revealing it exclusively with Vive Le Rock!

‘Go Go Girl’ is set for digital release on Friday 13 October. It follows on from the EP We Don’t Play Rock’n’Roll, released in February.

Fronted by Acid Dol – “a model from another dimension” – the Reading trio combine beats from today with riffs, samples and vocal harmonies from the 50’s and 60’s, clocking up over 150 live shows since their formation in 2014.

Pink Diamond Revue play the following gigs….

1st October – Off The Cuff Bar – London
14th October – Oxjam – Reading
30th October – Brixton Windmill – London

Adrian Sherwood’s dub explorers DUB SYNDICATE are to get four of their early alums reissued this autumn.

Following on from last year’s vinyl reissue of On-U Sound’s flagship act AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE’s first four albums, the same is doing done for Sherwood’s duo project with former CREATION REBEL drummer, Style Scott.

Albums being repressed are debut album The Pounding System from 1982; the following year’s double LP One Way System – originally a ROIR cassette-only release, now issued as a gatefold double; 1984’s collaboration with Dr Pablo, North Of The River Thames, and Tunes From The Missing Channel from ’85. The releases come with printed inner bags, download cards and bonus tracks where available.

Alongside the reissues, there’s also a new album Displaced Masters, featuring nine stripped-back takes of early tracks. The five releases will also be available as a CD box-set, Ambience In Dub 1982-1985 with a 24-page booklet.

Long-serving London garage rockers THE CANNIBALS are to bow out with a farewell gig this weekend.

Initially formed in 1976 by ex-COUNT BISHOPS singer Mike Spenser – who, according to author Jon Savage in his essential England’s Dreaming, had been briefly mooted as original frontman of the SEX PISTOLS – The Cannibals’ revolving door line-up has featured members of THE INMATES, THE POLECATS, THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN and many more along the way.

The Cannibals’ Last Stand will take place at The Dublin Castle, Camden Town, London on Saturday 30 September, featuring the band’s current line-up, plus a brief performance by by the classic ’78-’79 line-up. Kicking off at 7.45pm, support comes from JONAH GOLD & HIS SILVER APPLES. There’ll also be the screening of a video of archive Cannibals footage and a sale of band memorabilia.

The Gangland London Film Festival takes place next month, bringing together some of the most iconic Brit crime flicks of the past 70 years.

All the greats are here, from Basil Dearden’s 1950 The Blue Lamp, which introduced us to PC George Dixon, through Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg’s Performance, with Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, Michael Caine’s foray into the underworld of the North East in Get Carter and John Mckenzie’s 1980 East End classic, The Long Good Friday.

Taking place at the historic Regent Street Cinema over the weekend of 14-15 October, the screenings will be complemented by Q&As with film specialists, crime authors and historians.

The full running order is….

SATURDAY 14TH OCTOBER

3.00 PM: VILLAIN

Starring Richard Burton, Ian McShane and Nigel Davenport

1971’s VILLAIN is the story murderous, sadistic London gang leader Vic Dakin, a mother-obsessed homosexual modeled on real-life gangster Ronnie Kray, is worried about potential stool pigeons that may bring down his criminal empire. The brutal Vic cuts the throat of one bloke who has been a little too loose-lipped, afraid that his gossiping may turn into a grand operatic performance for the coppers. Vic, who enjoys playing at rough trade with his sidekick Wolfe, plans a payroll robbery and directs the blackmailing of Members of Parliament with a taste for unorthodox sex. Scotland Yard Police Inspector Matthews, playing Javert to Vic’s Jean Valjean, is moving in on him and the gang. Gang-member Edgar is hospitalized for an ulcer, and Inspector Matthews might be able to make him sing. Will Edgar spill the beans to the coppers before Vic can silence him?

6.00 PM: PERFORMANCE

Starring Edward Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg

Chas, a violent and psychotic East London gangster needs a place to lie low after a hit that should never have been carried out. He finds the perfect cover in the form of guest house run by the mysterious Mr. Turner, a one-time rock superstar, who is looking for the right spark to rekindle his faded talent.

+ Q&A with Kieron Pim author of the award winning Jumpin’ Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the Rock,n,Roll Underworld – the biography of David Litvinoff – an extraordinary man who connected the worlds of art, rock’n’roll and criminality in Fifties and Sixties London.

8.30 PM: GANGSTER NO.1

Starring Malcolm McDowell, David Thewlis, Paul Bettany
A middle-aged crime boss smugly reflects back from 1999, narrating the brutality which made him triumphant – and feared. As an unnamed young hood in Swinging 60’s London, he aped his mod boss Freddie Mays, and seemed to do anything for him. But his narration exposes all-consuming envy: of Freddie’s supremacy, and especially his tall bird. The baby shark develops his viciousness and backstabbing, scheming to be Gangster No. 1.
+ Q&A with crime novelist, writer and editor, Cathi Unsworth and Andrew Hulme, the editor of Gangster No.1 (and a string of other major films….).

SUNDAY 15TH OCTOBER

2.00 PM: THE BLUE LAMP

Starring Jack Warner, Dirk Bogarde, Jimmy Hanley
New London police officer Andy Mitchell (Jimmy Hanley) is paired with seasoned cop George Dixon (Jack Warner) to work the night shift. Meanwhile, criminals Tom Riley (Dirk Bogarde) and Spud (Patric Doonan) plan a series of robberies with Tom’s girl Diana, a discontented beauty, as inside worker. But in their second crime, they are caught robbing a local cinema, George meets Tom in a face-off. While trying to coax the thief into making a peaceful surrender, George is shot, setting off a citywide manhunt. The killer is clever, but will he outsmart himself?
+ Q&A with Paul Willetts, author of ‘North Soho 999’, the true story of gangs and gun crime in 1940’s London and of the crime wave that inspired The Blue Lamp.

4.30 PM: GET CARTER

Starring Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, John Osborne
A vicious London gangster, Jack Carter (Michael Caine), travels to Newcastle for his brother’s funeral. He begins to suspect that his brother’s death was not an accident and sets out to follow a complex trail of lies, deceit, cover-ups and backhanders through Newcastle’s underworld, leading, he hopes, to the man who ordered his brother killed.
+ Q&A with Nick Triplow, author of Getting Carter a meticulously researched and riveting account of the career of a doomed genius, Ted Lewis, one of the most important writers you’ve never heard of – the writer behind the book on which Get Carter was based, Jack’s Return Home – a book which many commentators agree launched contemporary British crime writing.

7.30 PM: THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY

Starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman
Harold, a prosperous English gangster, is about to close a lucrative new deal when bombs start showing up in very inconvenient places. A mysterious syndicate is trying to muscle in on his action, and Harold wants to know who they are. He finds out soon enough, and bloody mayhem ensues.
+ Q&A with Trevor Laird. Appearing in The Long Good Friday as ‘boy under car’, Trevor has many a hilarious tale from the set of the film.

Woking’s finest THE JAM are to be celebrated with a 40th Anniversary box set.

Messrs Weller, Foxton and Buckler burst onto the scene in the spring of 1977 with ‘In The City’, the first of an impressive run 18 Top 40 singles, taking Dr Feelgood’s skinny-tied proto-punk blueprint and going on to inspire the post-punk Mod Revival.

The succinctly-named 1977 covers that golden year for the band, bringing together remastered albums, demos, live recordings and TV appearances over 5 discs….

Disc 1 features their classic debut – also In The City – from May ’77, followed by a second disc of album demos, six of which are previously unreleased.

Second album This Is The Modern World, released in November of that year in its iconic Gered Mankowitz sleeve, makes up the third disc.

Disc 4 features a previously unreleased live recording from legendary London pub, The Nashville from 10 September 1977. It also includes a brace of John Peel sessions.

The fifth disc is a DVD comprising a selection of TV appearances from Top Of The Pops and So It Goes, plus promo videos and includes performances of stand-alone single ‘All Around The World’.

The box set is completed by a 144-page book, featuring new liner notes, period photos and a wealth of cuttings, reviews and memorabilia, along with a set of 5 postcards.

Set for release on 20 October through USM/Polydor, 1977 is available to pre-order here.

Ace Essex pop-punks MR HAPPY CHAINSAW have unveiled another new video from their current comeback EP, It’s Not My Ball.

‘Charlie’ is a completely reworked classic by the band, who split up in 2009, only to reform last summer. The video was created after a call out on social media inviting fans to send in 10-second clips.

The band have a bunch of dates lined-up, kicking off with a Musicians Against Homelessness gig on Friday 29 September. Taking place at Essex’s leading punk venue, The Asylum in Chelmsford, the gig will also feature sets from KOOPA, SHOOTING GALE and WOLFE SUNDAY. Tickets priced £4 are available here, and £5 on the door if available. Donations will also be collected on the night.

Fast-rising New Yorkers DIRTY FENCES have unveiled a new video and a bunch of UK dates ahead of their third studio album.

The party-hearty ‘Teen Angel’ is taken from Goodbye Love, the follow-up to 2013’s Too High To Kross and 2015’s Full Tramp.

The new album’s set for release on 27 October through Greenway Records and is available to pre-order here.

In the meantime, the band play London’s Shacklewell Arms this Sunday 17 September, working their way through Birmingham, Glasgow and Sheffield towards Liverpool Psych Fest on Friday 22 Sept. They then head to France, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and Finland. Full dates are….

Rejuvenated London rockers LAST GREAT DREAMERS have just announced that they are returning to the studio this November to record their fourth album.

The album, yet to be titled, follows on from their highly acclaimed Transmissions From Oblivion released in 2016. It will be crowdfunded through Pledgemusic and is scheduled for release through their own Ray Records in March 2018.

The pledge campaign was launched at the weekend to coincide with a string of dates supporting THE QUIREBOYS. You can pre-order the album at www.pledgemusic.com/lastgreatdreamers as well as purchasing lots of other exclusives.

Catch Last Great Dreamers on the road with The Quireboys from tonight at….

Last weekend, Vive Le Rock went north of the border to co-promote a show at Broadcast in Glasgow featuring three of Scotland’s finest up’n’coming punk bands. Neil Hodge was there to review the proceedings….

Take a Saturday night in Glasgow, a NYC record label, add three of Scotland’s premier punk bands, an intimate venue full of enthusiastic punters and you have the recipe for a superb night out. This was a hotly anticipated sold-out gig, with people travelling some distances to attend (Dublin, England, North of Scotland). They were most definitely not disappointed.

Tarbeach Records label-mates ReAction, Heavy Drapes and The Zips came together to provide a high octane, hundred-mile-an-hour punk rock romp. The running order had been kept under wraps beforehand to ensure maximum attendance for all bands and the ploy worked. The venue was rammed and the atmosphere was palpable as Airdrie’s peerless ReAction kicked things off in vigorous style with a selection of tracks from their debut album and recent EP. Opening up with ‘Dead Boy Racer’ the pace started at break-neck speed and didn’t let up throughout the set. The now familiar songs in the set were bolstered by some raucous new material including ‘Kamikaze Baby’, a song about Debbie Juvenile from the original Bromley Contingent, and closed with audience choice, their energetic version of External Menace’s ‘Someday’. By the time they left the stage packed-out venue was now a veritable sweatbox.

There was no time wasted between bands and shortly after ReAction exited stage left it was the turn of Edinburgh’s Heavy Drapes. The band took to the stage with frontman De Liberate making his now familiar declaration “We’re Heavy Drapes and we are punk rock,” before launching into their musical manifesto with ‘Number 1’. Fresh from a triumphant gig on Rebellion’s main stage, this was the first gig for ex-Scars guitarist, Paul Research. He has certainly brought a new vibrancy to the band who were on blistering form. It was a colossal assault on the senses from start to finish. The set included all the now standard Drapes tracks – ‘Into the Blue’, ‘Janie’ – with the crowd in great voice too, especially on tracks like ‘Let’s Free The Working Class’ and set closer ‘(I Wanna Be) Maladjusted’, every song going down a storm with the partisan crowd.

It was down to seminal Glasgow punk legends The Zips to close proceedings. We were treated to a career-spanning set starting with the topical ‘Hear, Hear’ and ‘Thin Blue Line’ from the latest album. The tempo of the evening was kept up with the likes of the high-spirited celebration of ’40 Years of Punk Rock’ and the first live outing for older song ‘Take Me Down’, which features on Gary Crowley’s upcoming punk and new wave compilation, through to set closer, early single ‘Don’t Get Pushed Around’, The Zips jolted the already exuberant crowd into another level of euphoria, the resultant jubilation saw the night ending with a stage invasion.

With new songs, imminent albums and forthcoming gigs a-plenty from all three bands, the future looks dazzling for Scottish punk. If you haven’t already done so, seek them all out – or stay at home staring at your navel, the choice is yours.

Minnesota punk legends HÜSKER DÜ are to be celebrated with a new box set this autumn.

Released by US archive label The Numero Group, also responsible for last year’s spectacular SCIENTISTS box set, Savage Young Dü chronicles the St Paul trio’s early years from 1979 to ’83 across four LPs or 3 CDs.

Sourced from original analogue demos, board tapes, and session masters, the collection comprises 69 tracks, 47 of them previously unreleased. Included are historic documents of the band’s earliest shows, first singles ‘Statues’ c/w ‘Amusement’ and ‘In A Free Land’, as well as 1983’s full-length debut studio album Everything Falls Apart and an alternate version of 1982’s seminal live recording Land Speed Record, all newly remastered.

The recordings are accompanied by a hardback book including a band history created with full participation from Grant Hart, Greg Norton, and Bob Mould, plus numerous never-before seen photos, a collection of rare flyers and a detailed sessionography.

Limited editions will also be accompanied by a 7″ EP Extra Circus, featuring 5 previously unissued tracks from the sessions for the classic 1983 SST mini-album Metal Circus.

Set for release on 10 November, Savage Young Dü is available to pre-order here. You can stream it here now.